First off I am going to say that I am not a Christian, but I found this book to be very good. The characters where written in a very provoking and interesting way, while I didn't agree with everything they believed, it only served to make these characters more realistic to me.

I must say I found the last story to be sad but it made me want to ensure our government and all other governments stop their crazy production of nuclear weapons. They can blow the planet up several times over, yet our government still produces them.

I had read this book back in high school and again in college and then about 10 years ago. Each time the story was interesting but listening to it this time was much more impactful. The narrator did an excellent job. The story is really a series of smaller stories within it. The ending is a Little too optimistic and futuristic in the 1950s and 1960s Way.But the characters in the story are compelling and the storyline and plot is exceptional. I can see why it has longevity in its appeal. If you enjoy science fiction and futuristic/dystopian stories, this is a classic. Enjoy Paul F Minneapolis Minnesota.

I have mixed feelings about this story. It is definitely unique in the genre. In this case the title should be taken literally, as most of the story revolves around religion's role in the post-apocalyptic world. The story is a bit slow at times, but it is a good read and easily deserves its Hugo award. There is also ample sprinkling of humor throughout, most of it of the tongue-in-cheek variety. It helps if you know some Latin, as many of the phrases go by pretty quick and you can miss some subtle humor based on the religious interpretation of events!

I recently listened to “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” by Walter M. Miller. I read it as a teenager, but I’ve noticed I get a lot more out of everything I read now than I did when my system was awash with raging hormones. (For example, I discovered that Thomas Hardy, far from being an incredible drag, was a funny, vivid and poignant writer.)

“A Canticle for Leibowitz” has been called a classic of science fiction. It’s also a classic in post-apocalyptic fiction, equal to George Stewart’s “Earth Abides” (which has held up remarkably well), “The Death of Grass” by John Christopher or “Malevil” by French writer Robert Merle. It has all the elements I look for in a great read: well-delineated characters, drama, mystery, humor and sorrow.

“A Canticle for Leibowitz” was published in 1960, at the height of the terror of nuclear annihilation. I remember “duck and cover” quite well; while crouching under my desk in my middle-school classroom, I was fairly certain that a blackout curtain and a wooden desk were not going to preserve me from frying to a crisp if an atomic bomb landed on, say, Los Angeles. At the time, nuclear catastrophe was a chill breath on the back of everyone’s vulnerable neck.

Miller’s opus opens after a nuclear apocalypse has literally bombed all of mankind back to the Stone Age. There’s a backlash against science, knowledge, and everything associated with the catastrophe buy anti-intellectuals who proudly call themselves “Simpletons.” Those perceived as intellectuals or scientists are murdered. Books are burned. Mankind descends into another Dark Age. Mutated humans, called “Children of the Pope,” are more or less accepted, because there are so many of them.

But there is one beacon of intellectual light left in the world: the Catholic Church, which resumes its ancient tradition of preserving past knowledge. The story opens with Brother Francis, a young postulant in the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, somewhere in the Southwestern desert of the United States. Leibowitz was one of the scientists murdered by the Simpletons, and after his martyrdom, miracles are said to have happened under Leibowitz’s aegis. The monks of the monastery want to canonize Leibowitz as a saint, but there hasn’t been enough evidence of his sanctity to satisfy New Rome. Brother Francis stumbles upon a cache of ancient papers, some of which appear to be pre-apocalyptic shopping lists—but others are blueprints. It becomes obvious to the reader (but not to the monks) that Leibowitz was an engineer, a designer of electronic circuits.

Poor Brother Francis meets his end as the first section of the book closes, having delivered his copy of one of the blueprints (suitably adorned with fanciful illuminations) to the Pope in New Rome.

The second section of the book takes place a few centuries later. An esteemed scholar visits the abbey to study the Leibowitzian relics and is able to tease out some of the technology from the ancient manuscripts. Technology is clearly in a renaissance as one of the monks has succeeded in building a generator to power an arc light. The scholar departs to New Rome to share his new-found insights and to recommend the canonization of Leibowitz.

The third section takes us another six or seven centuries into the future. Technology—much of it based on the study of old documents like the Leibowitzian relics—has developed to the point where space flight is practical. But nuclear weapons have been reinvented, as well—in all likelihood directly due to the knowledge preserved by the Order of St. Leibowitz—and nuclear war is imminent. The last abbot of the order perishes after an atomic blast brings his church down in ruins as he tries to save the consecrated hosts. But a ship commissioned by the Order launches into space, looking for a new home for humanity.

Well, sure, we destroy ourselves all over again, but maybe that rocket ship full of devout Catholics will colonize a new world that will never see an atomic mushroom cloud. Yet the reader is left with the impression that the human race is ultimately doomed to repeat its worst mistakes.

Sadly, “A Canticle for Leibowitz” was the only novel published during Miller’s lifetime. His last work, a follow-up novel called “St. Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman,” was published after his suicide in 1996. He must have seen that his ability to continue was in doubt, because he asked author Terry Bisson to finish it for him if he were unable to do so. Bisson did finish the book after Miller’s suicide. It’s thought that Miller’s traumatic experiences in WWII—including the bombing of an ancient abbey at Monte Casino—contributed to his depression and eventual suicide. That may be the case, but it also contributed to the creation of a science fiction masterpiece. Some people write to exorcise their demons, but even St. Leibowitz couldn’t exorcise the dark demons of Walter M. Miller’s haunted spirit.

A Canticle For Leibowitz is a profound and haunting look at a future after a "flame deluge". The story takes place over the course of several centuries and focuses mainly on events which occur in an American Southwest abbey. The book is divided into three sections, which basically equate to new Dark Ages, Renaissance, and Modern Age. Walter Miller weaves intricate imagery, ideology, perceptions, and even characters throughout the three sections, drawing stark parallels and variations down through the ages. He even maintains a wry and sophisticated sense of humor throughout the book by at once painting a character as an idiot and then later as a prophet.

Miller's prose is dense, intelligent, and rich without being flowery. He won't explain every detail to you, but he conveys much by how he draws and colors a scene. Although this book is surely not a light read (or listen), it never gets bogged down, and the pace is always reasonable. Tom Weiner's reading is excellent, and his tongue-in-cheek gravitas conveys the tone of the book well, Once in a while I found myself losing track of which character was speaking, but not often enough to be seriously distracted.

Beware that this novel is a product of its time -- today we may look back at the Cold War and snicker -- but really it's less about war than it is about the human condition which makes us feel the need to destroy or create, serve or exploit. Some other themes include: man's inventiveness and inability to control what he makes; how time distorts truth; how willingly people discard their immortal souls or how fervently they maintain them (the point of either being...?); decay in the midst of opulence; innocence manipulated by the powers that be; repetition of mistakes throughout history; and so on. Many books that present large ideas like these fall flat and fail to deliver. Not this book. And though many of Miller's ideas have been covered before and since by other authors, very few present them with such intermingled force and subtlety.

Also note that there is a good deal of religion discussed in Canticle (you're in a monastery, after all!) and Miller doesn't skimp on the traditional Latin. Only rarely does it help to understand the Latin, as it is mostly confined to incantations and such which have little impact on the story. But being familiar with Catholicism or Latin doesn't hurt.

Set in a post nuclear apocalypse, the book follows the Albertean order of Leibowitz during three different time periods as the world tries to rebuild itself. The knowledge the brothers have kept in their "Memorabilia" being vitally important to the effort. I found the structure of the book to be one of its greatest strengths, allowing the author to span a great amount of time (essentially a new stone age to the space age) without slowing the story. The juxtaposition of religion and science was also very engaging and thought-provoking. The performance given by Tom Weiner was superb. He impressed me with his narration of "Farnham's Freehold" and with this book, has become one of my favorite narrators. This was one of those rare audio books that made me want to start it all over again when it was finished. Highly recommend.